


Free to Feel

by tiptoe39



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Curses, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-09
Updated: 2011-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-26 21:00:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/pseuds/tiptoe39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A hunt has an odd effect on Sam and Dean - could it be ghost sickness?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Free to Feel

**Author's Note:**

> Beta’d by [](http://stellamaris99.livejournal.com/profile)[**stellamaris99**](http://stellamaris99.livejournal.com/), who true to her name did a stellar job :) Written for a prompt on [](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/profile)[**spnkink_meme**](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/).

It begins when they're called in to investigate the ghost of a Louisiana nun who'd been murdered by one of her own. Apparently Sister Marina of the Sisters of Perpetual Obedience had broken Sister Amy's hands and pinned her down, slashed her throat with a kitchen knife in the room they had shared. Now there were tales of Amy walking the halls of the abbey, face pleading, broken hands outstretched, trying to touch her fellow nuns..

It's a sordid story to say the least, and the first night there, Sam and Dean are both eager to wash their hands of all they've heard. In fact, it's in the restroom of the motel, washing their hands, that they first feel it.

Their hands brush while reaching for the towels on the rack, and where the brief contact is made there remains an impression, a tingling sensation that develops into an itch.

Dean sees Sam scratching and holds out his hand. "Let me see." Sam obeys, and where Dean touches him it's like a salve has been spread, icing the hot demands of the irritated skin. And when his hand slips away, it's the same itch, only worse.

Dean finds himself scratching his own hand later that night.

The next day the itch has spread. There's a strange tingling erupting all over Sam's body, and the only relief he feels is when Dean touches him, when a hand is laid on his shoulder in concern or where fingertips brush walking side by side.

Dean's starting to look less comfortable in his FBI monkey suit, too. He shifts, adjusts the collar. Sam reaches over and adjusts it for him that afternoon, and Dean looks at him gratefully for a second-- before Sam’s own collar starts to itch.

"Are you all right, agents?" asks Sister Sara, who is responsible for cleaning the rooms and has let them into Sister Amy's room with the master key.

"Yeah." Dean laughs, glancing nervously at his suddenly scratching partner. "Dry-cleaning, you know. Things're always kind of itchy right after."

They examine the room - nightstand, bed, locked drawer with a rather complex-looking combination code, six digits long with both letters and numbers in the wheels. It's currently set to FRGH5FL, and Sam can't work out the combination.

"This is a dead end," Dean whispers down at him. He's so close, Sam can feel the heat of his presence. It makes him weirdly ticklish. "We should just burn the nun's bones and get out of here. Everyone knows who the ghost is, everyone knows what happened."

Sam's uncomfortable enough that he nods agreement. He can afford to be less than thorough in one case out of thousands. Especially when it seems like he and Dean are both coming down with something.

* * *

"So, uh.. maybe we should see a doctor," Dean says that night, after the digging and the burning is done and they're safely in the confines of the Blues Motel, whose insignia is a car running on musical notes instead of tires - at least, that's what Sam _thinks_ it is, because it isn't terribly coherent.

"For what?" Sam says.

"You know." Dean looks over at where Sam's scratching his arm nervously.

"This?" Sam glances at his own arm, breaks out in brusque laughter. "Doc, I've got an invisible rash that only gets better when my brother touches it."

"Don't." Dean pinks.

"It's the truth! Dean, you have to have noticed. That's the only thing that makes it feel better."

"Maybe you need to get laid," jokes Dean, but the suggestion is dead on arrival. Sam sees through it, doesn't even dignify it with a response. He just shifts uncomfortably and glances over at Dean.

Dean, whose skin is starting to look like an oasis. Whose lips are pink and plump and flush with soothing water.

Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, a halfhearted gesture of comfort, and before Dean knows it he's slid that hand upward to his bare neck. His fingers on Sam's fingers on his throat, three layers of relief in a sea of discomfort and yearning.

Sam pulls him in sharply, and they're neck to neck, body to body, their skin singing underneath the layers of clothes they're wearing, begging for more. The only parts that are exposed are their hands and their faces, and the burning there is worse than anything else. Sam slides his hand under Dean's collar; Dean's hands jerk up Sam's shirt, and that's it, that's it, God, sweet relief, soothing and real. But their faces still tingle, their lips still burn hot, and within their mouths their tongues ache and itch. It's the only way. It's like being submerged in water, and it's all they can do. Dean's face tilts upward, Sam's chin comes down, and they kiss, open-mouthed, desperate, anxious to touch every inch and every cell of each other. Wrapped in each other's arms, it's like coming home for the first time.

And then Dean jerks away.

"The hell," he says.

"Sorry," says Sam.

They stare at each other. The burning starts again, a low prickling just beneath their skin.

"We can't do this."

"I know." Sam scratches his head. "I know we can't."

"We've been cursed. Or something. Those freaking nuns. It's probably some kind of ghost sickness."

"Because they were only ever touched by their sisters."

"I think I saw a porno like that--"

"Dean!"

"Right." Dean frowns. "Back on topic." He adjusts himself. Sam pretends he doesn't notice.

"We're going to have to find some way to deal with this. That doesn't involve--" The look in Dean's eyes is enough to stop him from finishing that sentence.

"We could..." Dean hesitates.

"What?"

Dean looks for a hole in the ground he can hide in. "We could... hug more."

A high-pitched, almost freakish laugh escapes Sam. "Wait, stop, I want to remember this moment. You just said we should _hug_ more."

"Sammy!" Petulant eyes turn toward him. "I'm serious. Maybe if we just... touch some more, it'll be bearable. Until we can figure out how to get rid of it."

"So what, like, hold hands in the car?"

"Maybe. You know, when nobody's looking." Dean's scratching the back of his neck obsessively, like he's going to pull off some skin, and Sam can hardly stand it. He reaches over, slides his hand onto the nape of Dean's neck. Dean relaxes visibly. He looks up at Sam.

He's right; it's bearable.

"OK," says Sam. He's not laughing anymore. "OK, I can do that."

Dean struggles for words, can't find any, and settles for nodding.

* * *

They get pulled onto a case involving a legion of necromancy-spawned zombies in South Dakota, a case in which they're joined by three or four other hunters just to have enough manpower to rein in the undead and stop the three families that have conspired to bring them back to life. What surprises Sam and Dean the most about the hunt is now damn well it goes. When they're on, they're really on. Dean glows with energy; he gives orders to the other hunters and they listen, rowdy hicks though they are; Sam happens upon all the right books and finds that he's memorized the incantation upon first look, even though it's in ancient Greek. Even so, the operation takes a few days, and in between interrogations and investigations and research, Dean and Sam retire to their motel room and watch TV, hands clasped, letting the yearning that's filled their bodies ease in the comfort of private togetherness.

At one point, Dean nearly falls asleep. He slumps against Sam's chest; Sam doesn't move him, and later on, when he's sure Dean's asleep, he brushes his lips against Dean's scalp. It feels like drinking a cool beer, like relaxing tired muscles after a work out. A relief. The next day, they wake up feeling as rested and refreshed as if they'd slept for a week.

On their way back down after the case is wrapped, they spend a night at Bobby's. It's a comfortable, relaxing night, until Bobby walks into the guest room to find the two of them, embracing as though they've been glued together, not moving. Bobby stands and watches for a moment. He sees Dean's head tilted onto Sam's shoulder, sees Sam with his eyes shut tight, one arm tucked up beneath Dean's shirt. Not moving, not doing anything, just there. Hugging. Touching.

Bobby retreats and slams the door closed. Dean and Sam look up. It's obvious they've been seen.

"We've got to break this curse," Sam says. But he doesn't pull back.

Dean nods into his shoulder.

They sleep in the two beds Bobby's laid out for them, their bodies singing with yearning all night long. In the morning Bobby's in the kitchen, and when Sam first says his name Bobby mutters, "You don't have to say anything. I know what it's like. Especially with zombies. Makes you want to hang on to what you've got."

"R... right," Sam stutters. "Thanks for understanding."

They don't stay another night.

* * *

In the car on the thirteen-hour ride down to Louisiana to revisit the abbey, Sam says abruptly, "Hey, Dean... what if it's not a curse?"

"Hm?"

"What if this isn't ghost sickness, what's happening to us?" Sam cocks his head. His fingers tingle with need; he brushes Dean's hands on the stick shift, and the sensation subsides.

"What else would it be?"

"I don't know. Some kind of an omen, a message. From one of the dead nuns."

"And how is that not ghost sickness?"

"Well, think about that case we just finished. We were really on, weren't we? At the top of our game. Ghost sickness is supposed to kill you, right? So why is this one making us better at what we do?"

"I don't know. Maybe so it'll hurt twice as much when we crash and burn?" Dean jerks his hand away from the stick shift and slams both his palms onto the wheel. "Look, Sammy, I don't care if it's a curse or an omen or what it is, we have to get rid of it. My pride's at stake here."

"Because you've got so much to prove to me." Sam laughs. But he turns away, looks out the window, and wonders. He's just as annoyed as Dean is about the need to touch. It's inconvenient, it's embarrassing, it's a pain. But he's kind of fearing what happens when they do break the curse. Will Dean ever touch him again?

He kind of likes the touching part.

* * *

Tomorrow they'll revisit the abbey, do another round of interviews, see if they can identify another apparition or any signs of witchcraft. For now, they're holed up in the Blues Motel again, whose logo Sam still isn't sure he understands. He's staring at the stationery for an hour after Dean goes to sleep, trying to figure out why he's so damn nervous about resolving this mystery. Finally, he stands up, switches off the desk lamp, and lies down in bed.

He's hot. So damn hot.

He rolls around in the sheets and ends up feeling itchy all over. Sitting up, he strips off his shirt, tries to cool his torso against the comforter. Nothing will relieve the burning.

No, that's not true. One thing will. One thing, but Sam won't give in to it. Not now that they're so close. Not when he knows how touchy Dean is about everything. He will survive. He will endure.

Turning over, putting his back defiantly to Dean, Sam counts his breaths, trying to lull himself to sleep.

At breath number twenty-seven, a bare chest presses itself against his back.

Sam freezes, daring neither to breathe nor move.

"Don't say anything," Dean mutters.

Cool relief and warm pleasure are rippling their way up and over Sam's back, spreading to his chest. He inhales heavily, feeling the air fall into his lungs like rainwater, calming everything. Dean's arms wrap around his waist, and Sam slides his hands along them, finding handholds on Dean's forearms. His lips burn, and his cock is starting to rise hot in his pants, but he's still calmer than he's been in hours. His eyes slide closed and he falls immediately and pleasantly asleep.

In the morning they're pressed chest to chest. Sam must have turned over in his sleep. The flood of mixed desire and relief, both in his own body and emanating from the still-sleeping Dean, is frightening. Dean's got morning wood and Sam can feel it, pressed against him, as innocuous and tempting as the press of Dean's palm against the small of his back. In these few seconds before Dean awakens, Sam closes his eyes and memorizes the sensation.

Right now, it's easy to admit what he wants. Easy to slide his own hardness against Dean's in a barely perceptible motion. For a few seconds, he's free to feel.

The next second, he's jumping to his feet. He knows how to crack the case.

* * *

Sister Sara is visibly trembling beneath Sam's excited gaze. "Don't worry," he says, "don't worry. I just need to see the room where Sister Amy slept. Just one more time."

Sister Sara looks down the cloister hallway at the Mother Superior, who immediately approaches Dean with concern in her eyes. "You're upsetting her. I thought Sister Amy's case was closed."

"We're just trying to exhaust every possible avenue of investigation," Dean says in his best concerned voice, at the same time shooting a _what-the-hell_ look at Sam. The look he gets in response, eyebrows craning upward and lips pressed together, has its own meaning: _Just trust me._

In Sister Amy's room, Sam goes straight for the locked drawer. He slides the combination wheels forward a few times until the device reads FREE2FL.

It clicks open; inside is a small, sleek laptop. Sam turns it on, applies the same password, and a folder of photos and text documents flies open. Picture after picture of the victim and her supposed murderer, pressed together in poses sometimes intimate, sometimes sisterly. Always close. Always touching.

Sam opens her e-mail's sent folder.

 _...all I can think about is touching you again. Can't believe how good last night was..._

 _...it's wrong, we should leave, we should go. I know you're devoted to Christ, I am too. But can't we be devoted together?_

 _She broke my hand. Said she'd break more than that. Marina, if anything happens to me..._

"Sister Sara," Dean says, quietly, patiently. "Do you know who broke Sister Amy's hand?"

The Mother Superior glares at her. Sara shakes her head, terrified. It's all the answer Dean needs.

"If my right arm offend Thee," the Mother Superior says in a trembling voice when Sam and Dean turn the full force of their glares on her. "Those children sinned with their wandering hands. It is my right to discipline them as I see fit!"

"And when their hearts sinned?" Sam is livid. "Did you decide you'd carve them out, too?"

"And set up Sister Marina for murder? I must have missed that chapter of the Bible," Dean declares.

"Marina was a filthy monster, infecting the minds of my children!" The Mother Superior's eyes were full of tears. "Filling their minds with sin. Before Sister Amy, Marina did the same to my sister... my _blood_ sister! She left the abbey, I lost her forever... That woman deserved everything she got!"

She collapses in sobs.

"I'll call the local police," Sam says in a low tone.

* * *

Back at the Blues Motel, they slam the door behind them and just stand, breathing, free of that case and all the nasty histories it's uncovered for the first time in a week.

"That should be the end of it," Dean says.

"The Mother Superior's in jail, it's only a matter of time before Marina's cleared. Yeah, that should put an end to a lot of pain at the abbey."

"That's not what I mean." Dean turns on him, irritable. "I mean, this curse, this _thing._ It should be over now."

"Oh." Sam's face falls. "Right. That. Yeah, it should be gone."

"Right." Dean strides toward the bathroom, not looking back. He opens the door, closes it again, and turns back to Sam.

"It's not," he says.

"I know." Sam's voice is strangely calm.

"So what do we do now?"

Sam walks toward him, long strides, his palms and his face and his heart burning for one thing: touch, more touch, everywhere. "We listen to it."

"Don't!" Dean puts up his palms, like he can ward Sam away with the power of his will.

"Dean, listen! It makes sense!"

"Nothing makes sense. Nothing--" his eyes rake over Sam and Sam can _feel_ it-- "about the way I'm feeling makes sense right now. This curse--"

"It's not a curse!" Sam's laughing. "It's a message, it's Sister Amy telling us--"

"Who cares what some murdered nun is telling us?" Dean backs up until he runs out of floor. Pressed against the back wall, he holds Sam's gaze and tries to look resolute. It's a look that crumbles in seconds. "What _is_ she telling us?"

"That it's OK to want to be touched," Sam says. "She's telling us--"

His hands slide around Dean's face. "She's telling us to be free to feel."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Sam, that is the cheesiest--"

But that moment of sarcasm was his undoing; before he can finish the phrase, Sam's lips are on his, gentle, warm, and pressing, and Dean's helpless. He whimpers, soft, in the back of his throat, and throws his arms around Sam's neck, holding on tight to his shoulders. His mouth opens and his tongue slides forward to taste Sam's lips, to slide against Sam's tongue with a lurch of sensation that makes him groan and roll his eyes up into his head. Sam pulls him off the wall, snakes his hands under Dean's shirt and starts to pull it free. He lowers his lips to Dean's neck and whispers, "More, Dean, I need to touch you more."

Dean pulls back, but it's only to shuck off his own shirt. Sam follows suit.

Then they're pressed together again, warm chest on warm chest, and their hands and arms are sliding all over each other, eagerly wandering from spine to shoulder to elbow and back again. Their fingers interlace and a white-hot burst of passion ignites Sam's body; he wants to be that way with all of Dean, folded in and out so that every crevice is filled, every limb is matched with another. He pulls Dean backward onto the bed, and they fall down to lie together.

Dean's on top of him, his hands gripping Sam's hips and his mouth pressed into Sam's hair. "Don't stop, Sam."

"God, no," Sam murmurs. "Never."

Dean kisses Sam's ears, kisses his jaw, kisses his neck. So many hot brands of mouth in so many places. Sam is trembling from the impact of each brilliant new combination of flesh and flesh. He doesn't realize for a long time that he's been rutting up against Dean's hips, that his cock is rubbing slow hot friction into Dean's thigh, until he looks down to realize Dean's trying to crawl out of his pants.

He can't believe he has voice left to whisper "Dean, please." Can't believe he has the motor control to reach down and help Dean shuck his pants off. But his whole body's moving of its own accord, singing for skin, _skin_. It's impossible to hear his brain work above the roar of it.

The first moment of their bare legs tangling together is a revelation. Sam throws back his head and cries out, high and loose, the sound flying into the air and followed almost immediately by a lower grunt, Dean's voice, as their thighs interlock and begin to move together. Dean's hard, he's giving soft half-thrusts and half-gyrations into Sam's crotch, their cocks are bumping together and their bodies are on fire and still all Sam can think is more skin, more touch, _more._

"Sam," Dean whispers in between pressing short, closed-mouth kisses to his mouth. "Sam, I'm gonna come--"

"God, yes-- me, too, Dean--"

Beads of sweat dripping from Dean's forehead, dropping onto Sam's cheek, sliding down into the cleft of their joined lips --

Dean's head snaps back. "Oh! Oh, shit, Sammy!"

Sam gasps for cool air. His hands clamp onto Dean's hips, grind them down furiously into his own. "Oh my God, oh my God!"

Dean's pulse is fluttering visibly in his throat. Sam cranes his neck upward to seal his mouth over it. Dean gives a sharp cry and comes, his hips stuttering down madly into Sam's, his cock pouring out sticky spurts of come between them. He cries out again at the tail end of it, long and groaning, and Sam hurtles off the edge in an orgasm that keeps him thrashing on the bed for what feels like minutes. "God!" he keeps yelling, and "Dean!"

"Oh, God, Sammy, Sammy," Dean murmurs as bliss takes the strength from his muscles.

They're still saying each other's names, like children groping in the dark for each other -- seeking confirmation that they're both still there -- as sleep takes them.

* * *

When Sam wakes up, Dean's already up. And dressed. And sitting by the front window, pretending to look out through closed curtains.

"It's gone," he says. "The curse. Or the itch. Or whatever. It's gone."

"It is?" Sam sits up. He looks at himself, all tacky with dried come and completely naked. His skin doesn't burn. "It is."

"Yeah." Dean doesn't sound pleased.

Sam gets to his feet. He heads toward the bathroom for a shower, which he takes in silence. There's still silence as he emerges and dresses. He keeps glancing over at Dean, who keeps not looking at him.

He's almost packed up his duffel when Dean says, "So we did that."

The bag slips to the floor. Sam approaches him. "Yeah, we did."

Dean turns. "We can't undo it. We can't pretend it never happened."

"No," Sam confirms, dumbly, his voice sounding like an echo of itself. "No, we can't."

"So maybe that was the curse," Dean says. "Make us do something unforgivable, a one-time mistake that we'll regret for the rest of our lives."

The idea hangs in the air for far too long. Maybe a whole second. Something's burning that isn't Sam's skin. He thinks it might be his eyes. They're starting to water.

"But... I don't regret it," he says. Sure, slow.

Dean's response is less sure, but it's also less slow. He gets up, throwing the chair to the floor, and the words spill from his mouth so fast he looks shocked to hear them. "Neither do I."

"And... I don't want it to be a one-time thing," Sam says. A smile is starting to break over his face as he processes Dean's answer. "That'd break my heart."

Dean's eyes are round. "I know... mine too."

Sam reaches out a hand. "Dean."

Sunlight peeks between the curtains in a bright golden shaft. Dean's hand is illuminated as it takes Sam's. Gold on gold.

They touch then not because they need to, not even because they want to. When Sam's lips touch Dean's, when they tumble back to bed for a long, slow Louisiana morning, it's because they're free to.


End file.
